No decision yet to attack Syria

NO DECISION YET TO ATTACK SYRIA, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says, via our colleague Connor O’Brien: “No decision has been made to attack the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons, [Mattis] told Congress Thursday.

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“Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Mattis said he believes the regime used chemical weapons in a recent attack, but largely avoided discussing the likelihood the U.S. would launch a retaliatory attack. President Donald Trump’s top national security officials are set to meet later Thursday to discuss potential responses.”

Trump plans to talk to allies before making a decision, adds The Associated Press.

Still, the U.S., France and Britain have crafted broad plans for a strike, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said in an interview with MSNBC the U.S. has enough proof to act in response to last week’s reported chemical attack in Syria, via POLITICO’s Rebecca Morin.

Blood samples from the incident show both chlorine gas and an unnamed nerve agent, U.S. officials tell NBC News.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron says his government has proof the Syrian government carried out the attack, via Reuters.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo confirms the U.S. killed hundreds of Russians in Syria during his confirmation hearing to be secretary of State, reports Business Insider.

And here’s what we know about Russian military capabilities in the event of a Western strike on Syria, also according to Reuters.

— TRUMP HAS MILITARY AUTHORITY FOR A STRIKE, House Speaker Paul Ryan says, via Reuters: “U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday the United Sates has an obligation to lead an international response to a suspected chemical attack in Syria and President Donald Trump has the authority to use military force.

“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ‘and his enablers, Tehran and Moscow, have committed another mass atrocity. ... I think the U.S. has an obligation to lead an international response to hold people accountable for that,’ Ryan told reporters.”

But some scholars disagree, warning an attack would be illegal, the Washington Examiner writes.

Meanwhile, in Syria, Assad’s government nears control of the enclave hit by the suspected chemical attack, the WSJ reports.

MD TRIVIA: Today’s question comes from last week’s winner, Harris Walker, director of intergovernmental affairs at the National Nuclear Security Administration: Name the three primary sites of the Manhattan Project.

The first person to email the correct answer to Morning D (ghellman@politico.com) wins a mention in Monday’s edition.

QUOTE OF THE DAY — SMITH WARNS MATTIS TO PLAN ‘ON A LEAN FUTURE’: HASC ranking Democrat Adam Smith of Washington state warned Mattis Thursday that growing U.S. budget deficits could limit Pentagon funding in the future, despite increases agreed to through fiscal 2019.

“While 2018 and 2019 are great, I hope you are also planning for a lean future because we are looking at a trillion-dollar deficit this year,” he said.

HAPPENING TODAY — HASC SUBCOMMITTEE EYES MILITARY PERSONNEL: HASC’s Military Personnel Subcommittee hears from the services about their fiscal 2019 military personnel posture.

The Navy is asking for more authority to sidestep the “up- or-out” system, reports Federal News Radio.

TOP DOC — ARMED SERVICES DEMS WANT DETAILS ON DoD TRANSGENDER PANEL: Armed Services Committee Democrats, including ranking members Smith and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island re asking the Defense secretary for more details about the Pentagon process for determining his transgender service member policy recommendations.

Specifically, they ask Mattis in a letter to reveal who sat on a panel of experts who provided him with advice, as well as who else he and the panel consulted ahead of the department’s recommendation to the president.

“Although you state that the panel received input from civilian medical professionals, the recommendations appear to us to be inconsistent with what we have heard from the civilian medical community,” the lawmakers state.

Speier, in Thursday’s hearing with Mattis, challenged Mattis on his transgender troop policy, asking whether such troops are a “burden,” via the Washington Examiner.

And Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Gillibrand in a SASC hearing Thursday that he has “received precisely zero reports of issues of cohesion, discipline, morale and all those sorts of things” related to open transgender military service.

However, he added “this is not a civil rights issue” as soldiers voluntarily give up some of those rights when they join the service.

NO QUICK FIX FOR AVIATION READINESS, Mattis tells HASC, via Military Times: “In congressional testimony partly driven by Military Times’ recent investigation into a 40 percent rise in aviation accidents, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Congress that the deep cuts to pilot hours and lack of ready aircraft that are partly to blame will not find a quick fix.

“‘We cannot repair our way out of the situation we are in,’ Mattis told members of the House Armed Services Committee Thursday.

“‘We’re actually going to have to buy, in some cases, the capabilities we have simply worn out and had to set aside and can’t even be repaired, whether it be aircraft where squadrons do not have enough, or it be ships that cannot go back to sea on time, because when we open them up, long overdue for their maintenance period, we find things wrong inside that lengthen their time in the shipyard.’”

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of HASC’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, noted in a separate hearing Thursday that more service members have died in aircraft accidents this year than in Afghanistan.

HOUSE REJECTS BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT, reports POLITICO Pro’s Kaitlyn Burton: “The House on Thursday rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in a 233-184 vote.

“The measure needed backing from two-thirds of members. The balanced budget amendment faced a high hurdle, since it would also require a two-thirds vote in the Senate and ratification by three-fourths of states before it could take effect.

“The proposal, H.J. Res. 2 (115), would mandate a three-fifths vote by Congress to raise the debt limit and a majority vote to approve any tweaks to the tax code.”

Thornberry, who voted for the resolution, urged Congress to prioritize defense spending.

“The first job of the federal government is to defend the country, but we are now spending only 15 percent of the budget on national defense,” he said in a statement. “First things have to come first.”

MATTIS PLEDGES ‘NO CONTACT WITH MIGRANTS’ FOR BORDER TROOPS, reports The Washington Post: “Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought to reassure skeptical lawmakers Thursday that National Guard troops deployed to the Mexico border would have a limited mission despite indications from President Trump that military personnel would remain there until he gets the $18 billion wall he wants built...

“The troops will operate under a policy of ‘no contact with the migrants,’ Mattis said, and will support U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a subagency of DHS, as it heads into the months when migration flows typically increase.”

“This joint effort has generated valuable data and insights to support our own missile defense technology,” the senators said in a letter to the Defense Appropriations leaders.

SASC members Gillibrand and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), as well as SASC Strategic Forces Chairwoman Deb Fischer (R- Neb.) and ranking Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana, led the letter.

— PERDUE LEADS GOP SENATORS PROBING SYRIA-NORTH KOREA CHEMICAL WEAPONS LINKS: Sen. David Perdue of Georgia is leading seven other Republican senators asking the State and Treasury Departments to probe connections between North Korea and the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons.

The United Nations Panel of Experts reported in February that North Korea sent Syria items and technicians to assist in the production of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles.

In a letter to Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the senators ask the departments what steps they plan to take to prevent further sanctions aversion.

MAKING MOVES — MCMASTER’S DEPUTY TO LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE, reports POLITICO’s Cristiano Lima: “Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster's No. 2 is exiting the White House, a spokesperson confirmed Thursday, marking the fourth senior staffer to unveil plans to leave the National Security Council as John Bolton takes over...

“The string of departures signals that Bolton, whose hawkish foreign policy views have raised concern among some officials, will have the opportunity to reshape the agency's leadership structure to this liking.”

About The Author : Gregory Hellman

Greg Hellman is a defense reporter for POLITICO Pro. He is the author of the Morning Defense newsletter and covers Congress.

Prior to joining POLITICO, Greg worked as a national security analyst for the Government Accountability Office where he focused on defense and counter-ISIS policy. He also worked as a reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Inside Washington Publishers, where he covered worker-safety policy.

Greg grew up outside Milwaukee, Wis. He graduated from Boston University in 2008 and American University in 2013.